t repast and soft repose;
And when feast and frolic tire,
Drops asleep upon his lyre.

All the difficulty will be indeed for us _other_ two-legged creatures to
leave the sweet societies of charming Venice; but they begin to grow
fatiguing now, as the weather increases in warmth.

I do think the Turkish sailor gave an admirable account of a carnival,
when he told his Mahometan friends at his return, That those poor
Christians were all disordered in their senses, and nearly in a state of
actual madness, while he remained among them, till one day, on a sudden,
they luckily found out a certain grey powder that cured such symptoms;
and laying it on their heads one Wednesday morning, the wits of all the
inhabitants were happily restored at _a stroke_: the people grew sober,
quiet, and composed; and went about their business just like other
folks. He meant the ashes strewed on the heads of all one meets in the
streets through many a Catholic country; when all masquerading,
money-making, &c. subside for forty days, and give, from the force of
the contrast, a greater appearance of devotion and decorous behaviour in
Venice, than almost any where else during Lent.

I do not for my own part think well of all that violence, that strong
light and shadow in matters of religion; which requires rather an even
tenour of good works, proceeding from sound faith, than any of these
staring testimonials of repentance, as if it were a work to be done
_once a year only_. But neither do I think any Christian has a right to
condemn another for his opinions or practice; when St. Paul expressly
says, that "_One man esteemeth one day above another, another man
esteemeth every day alike; let every man be fully persuaded in his own
mind. But who art thou, that judgest another man's servant[Footnote:
Romans, chap. xiv.]?_"

The Venetians, to confess the truth, are not quite so strenuously bent
on the unattainable felicity of finding every man in the same mind, as
others of the Italians are; and one great reason why they are more gay
and less malignant, have fewer strong prejudices than others of their
countrymen, is merely because they are happier. Most of the second rank,
and I believe _all_ of the first rank among them, have some share in
governing the rest; it is therefore necessary to exclude ignorance, and
natural to encourage social pleasures. Each individual feels his own
importance, and scorns to contribute to the degradation of the